Dawkins isn't what one might call a deep thinker ...
He's pretty consistent about arguing when he disagrees, rather than just throwing around insults. Hint, hint.
Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
81–90 of 145 posts
Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's too much grey to make this black and white. What would you say to a closeted gay politician pushing anti-gay legislation? Would you not consider that person a fraud, just like someone saying their research is based on the universe being 13 billion years old when they don't really believe that?
Why would that person be a fraud? He might honestly believe homosexuality is wrong, but simply be unwilling to control his urges. For a non-moralistic example of this behavior, consider a fat person who wishes to lose weight for the selfish purpose of attracting sexual partners, but is unwilling to put down the bacon. Is this person a fraud when they say people should lose weight?
Great example, from a user named yummyfajitas
Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
#83This obsession with unearthing people's private beliefs and actively using them as grounds to discriminate against them, seems quite Orwellian to me. Why not just evaluate how well an employee does the job she is paid to do, and not worry about the ideas she expresses outside of work, or the activities she engages in? Dawkins simply seems to be looking for ways of making life more difficult for religious people. If t…
The article isn't about religion so much as it is about beliefs. Does being a religious belief make a belief better? The current laws seek to protect religious beliefs over non-religious ones. Basically, why is it okay to reject people based on some beliefs but not others?
Political beliefs are also very much protected.
Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
#84I personally don't care, but if I had to pick, I would want a scientist that was technically proficient, flexible in their thinking, and was able to explain the current way of thinking to a level acceptable to his peers. That'd be it.
As far as personal beliefs, if I had to pick, I'd want a guy who had the craziest damn personal beliefs I could find. Perhaps involving the Great Pumpkin, or tiny elves that live in the forest and come out at night.
Why? Because science is not orthodoxy. That is, science is always provisional and always open to change. Some jerk who "just knows" that string theory is right is the last guy I want looking at string theory. Give it to the guy who reads palms and is waiting for the Xanians to arrive in their spaceships after the eclipse.
There is an assumption here, that having some sort of faith would preclude being able to do your job. It's not true -- or rather, it's being inflexible that prevents you from doing your job as a scientist. People are marvelous creatures. They can be hard-headed and inflexible in an infinite number of ways, most of which do not involve some formal belief system. As a for-instance, I imagine many people would think that believing in Intelligent Design would be a disqualifier for studying cosmology. And they would stubbornly resist changing their mind to the contrary. This is exactly the kind of inflexibility you need to watch out for. If you already know where you're going to end up, there's not much point in taking the journey.
Very interesting that thinking of this problem in terms of flexibility and creative thinking (the key elements to move science forward) turns up a completely different answer than thinking about it in terms of "what's most likely correct?" which is an interesting question but not germane. All you're checking with that "does this guy believe what most of us do?" is whether or not most other scientists think this guy is a good guesser, ie, he agrees with them. That's a bit too much popularity contest and groupthink for me.
Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
#85I personally don't care, but if I had to pick, I would want a scientist that was technically proficient, flexible in their thinking, and was able to explain the current way of thinking to a level acceptable to his peers. That'd be it. As far as personal beliefs, if I had to pick, I'd want a guy who had the craziest damn personal beliefs I could find. Perhaps involving the Great Pumpkin, or tiny elves that live in the…
Orthodoxy, in all ways seems to plague people. Plus you get that employee who has the unorthodox beliefs and you know you've got someone whose had to think about them. Someone whose had to overcome the inertia and social pressure for conformity.
In business, repeating what others have done is not nearly as profitable is discovering something new. This could be new technology, but it can also come from understanding the market in a way that others did not see.
Groupon could have been done in 1998 or 2003. It is not technically all that complex, but the different perspective on the market created massive value.
Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
#86I'm surprised to see Dawkins get this so wrong. I suspect holding opposing beliefs about a thing is quite common.
Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's too much grey to make this black and white. What would you say to a closeted gay politician pushing anti-gay legislation? Would you not consider that person a fraud, just like someone saying their research is based on the universe being 13 billion years old when they don't really believe that?
I'm gay. If I were a politician, I would oppose laws (actually like Dawkins does here) that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation (as well as religion.) Would my thinking be suspect? Does that mean that I think that gay people shouldn't be hired or be able to get housing? From the common / popular "pro-gay" view my positions would be characterized as "anti-gay" and I would risk being demonized by GLAAD, etc.…
> Clearly, this gay person is choosing to discriminate based on religion.
Not really. It's a subtle difference, but it's more like discriminating against someone for being a jerk. Or perhaps insensitive.
a) If the person wasn't religious but said the same thing, one might discriminate the same way. (Therefore showing it wasn't because of religion)
b) Alternatively, if someone was religious, but wasn't judgmental, presumably you wouldn't have a problem with them.
Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
#88In the past, a scientist religious belief didn't affect his contribution. I don't see how targeting them now will benefit the scientific community. Carl Gauss was a devote Christian; what are we suppose to do if he existed now, not recognize him? "I am convinced of the afterlife, independent of theology. If the world is rationally constructed, there must be an afterlife." - Godel Maybe Godel wasn't logical for his be…
Times change. In the past you could be killed (in the West) for not being religious, or for adhering to the wrong sect. The way we're headed, religious belief is becoming more and more fringe. Basically, religion only "makes sense" if most people are raised in that tradition. From the outside (i.e. to people not raised in a religious tradition) it just sounds kind of silly at best, or crazy at worst. So, at a certain…
> The way we're headed, religious belief is becoming more and more fringe
Any references?
Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
#89In the past, a scientist religious belief didn't affect his contribution. I don't see how targeting them now will benefit the scientific community. Carl Gauss was a devote Christian; what are we suppose to do if he existed now, not recognize him? "I am convinced of the afterlife, independent of theology. If the world is rationally constructed, there must be an afterlife." - Godel Maybe Godel wasn't logical for his be…
Times change. In the past you could be killed (in the West) for not being religious, or for adhering to the wrong sect. The way we're headed, religious belief is becoming more and more fringe. Basically, religion only "makes sense" if most people are raised in that tradition. From the outside (i.e. to people not raised in a religious tradition) it just sounds kind of silly at best, or crazy at worst. So, at a certain…
> The way we're headed, religious belief is becoming more and more fringe.
Not really https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Demographics_... but even if it was so, at which point is it OK to discriminate against people holding fringe views?
Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
#90Dawkins and most others here are missing the primary issue: evidence. What qualifies as [evidence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence) for scientific purposes is limited. It excludes (or minimizes) evidence the human beings accept in most other areas. You would no more cite your neighbor's belief in the shape of the earth for a scientific paper than cite the number of flowers you bought your wife as proof that you love her. There are many reasons people believe Bible accounts for rational reasons outside of scientific evidence.
Also implicit in most of the posts here and Dawkin's piece is to assume there is zero scientific evidence for a young earth or any other Biblical story. As Feynman was fond of saying, it isn't up to science to determine truth all the time, but rather what is more or less likely based on what we currently know. It is most likely our universe is X years old based on what we know now, but even those ages have changed by wide margins in the last century. We don't know how much more it will change in the next century. But we are as sure about the current age as astronomers were 100 years ago.
For the record, based on our present scientific knowledge, it is more likely our earth is 4.5 billions years old than 5000. But we don't know for sure, do we?